JOEL KOTKIN: Fascism has not come to America.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Trumpism and fascism is that Trump stands, first and foremost, for Trump. He has no true ideological lodestone, which makes the fevered attempts to discern one just silly. His appeal lies not in the revolutionary rhetoric of the 1930s but in seemingly commonsense alternatives to the truly insane policies of the increasingly left-leaning Democrats – on issues from the border and transgender ‘rights’ to the protection of the criminal class. Economically, MAGA is more reactionary than visionary, pointing, as it does, towards a return to the torpid 1950s.
In contrast, Benito Mussolini identified himself as a ‘revolutionary’ transforming society. He wanted the state to become ‘the moving centre of economic life’. Fascist corporatism was widely embraced by Confindustria, the leading organisation of Italian industrialists, which was glad to see the end of class-fuelled conflict and welcomed the state’s investment in infrastructure. This may not have made all capitalists fascists at heart, but it preserved what Mussolini called formal adherence to the regime. His approach gained a surprising amount of admiration in Britain and elsewhere.
In some ways, fascist corporatism – rejecting the autonomy of private interests – is closer to ‘stakeholder capitalism’ and the environmental ‘great reset’ than it is to Trumpanomics, with its mixture of protectionist tariffs and tax cuts.
Indeed, the fascist streak of Trump’s long-term opponents is even more in evidence when it comes to their attitude to that most critical of rights: free speech. Ever since the 1960s, traditional liberal notions of free speech have been undermined, particularly in academia, by New Leftish notions of ‘repressive tolerance’, authored by German exile Herbert Marcuse, as well as the deeply violent ‘revolutionary ideas’ concocted by Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon and Mao.
These ideas have helped birth an increasingly authoritarian mood on campuses – a mood that recalls the popularity of fascist ideology among students a century ago. This authoritarianism comes primarily not from traditional repressive rightists, but from the mainstream left, which targets what it sees as ‘far right’. This includes anyone embracing even vaguely Trumpian ideas.
Tom Wolfe famously wrote that, “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe:” President Macron is playing with fire by recognizing Palestine. His imperious statement rewards the neo-fascists of Hamas and isolates the Jewish State.
As Jeff Goldstein notes:
